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Calling the West Indies: the BBC World Service and Caribbean Voices

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Calling the West Indies: the BBC World Service and Caribbean Voices Calling the West Indies: the BBC World Service and Caribbean Voices Darrell Newton, Ph.D. Darrell Newton, Ph.D. 606 Upland Court Salisbury, Maryland 21801 USA [email protected] 2 Calling the West Indies: the BBC World Service and Caribbean Voices Darrell Mottley Newton, Ph.D. This paper provides an historical account of radio programs developed by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) resulting in part from West Indian immigration to England during the 1940s and 1950s. It examines various ways in which the organization addressed issues of integration through special radio talks planned by the Home and World Services. Beginning in 1939, the program Calling the West Indies featured West Indians troops on active service reading letters on air to their families back home in the Islands. The program later became Caribbean Voices (1943- 1958) and highlighted West Indian writers who read and discussed literary works on the World Service. The Colour Bar (1943) examined the impact of prejudice upon immigrants; notably West Indians and Africans relocating to urban areas in England. Ultimately portions of these shows shifted focus and began to offer an intrinsic view of the Afro-Caribbean experience in the UK. During the programming segments We See Britain (1949) and West Indian Diary (1949), servicemen, teachers and others who visited or lived in England discussed their personal experiences for the benefit of those considering immigration. These programs offered rare opportunities for West Indians to discuss their perspectives on life among white Britons and subsequent social issues. 3 BBC Radio and early programming The British Broadcasting Corporation began serving the public with an intention to acculturate audiences on every subject deemed acceptable. In the spring of 1922, Her Majesty‟s Post Office authorized two small, experimental stations to begin intermittent broadcasting from Writtle near Chelsford, England and from London.1 That November daily broadcasts began in the urban centers of Birmingham and Manchester, as well. As the transmitter network spread across the country, British citizens eager to embrace this new technology could hear wireless in nearly every city by 1925 2. As radio garnered more attention, a public service agenda became an essential part of BBC programs and their production. The BBC‟s effort to mold the social consciousness of a nation eventually moved beyond the shores of the British Isles to, in the case of this study, the Caribbean. By November of 1932, over 5,000,000 license holders had tuned in to variety programming produced by a host of artists, by and by 1938 98 percent of the populace could listen to BBC programs at their convenience. 3 The importance of the BBC reached a level of international attention by December 1932 when its Empire Service began. To commemorate the occasion, King George V gave the first royal broadcast to those living within England or its colonies on Christmas Day. Within a decade the BBC Empire Service began broadcasting English language programs to nearly all of the 4 British colonies. By the mid-1930s, listeners could hear the Empire Service in Australia, India, South Africa, West Africa and Canada with extended foreign language services beginning in 1938. This programming included broadcasts of the Arabic and Latin American Services along with foreign news bulletins in German, French and Italian. By the end of 1943, the BBC was broadcasting to various parts of war-torn Europe in over forty-five different languages and in the Caribbean Isles. When considering the World Service and its Caribbean Radio section specifically, it provided entertainment for Anglophone audiences throughout the West Indian colonies, and sometimes served as a recruitment tool 4 during the Second World War. The Service also attempted to address racial tensions and subsequent social issues as American, British and colonial troops intermingled on the streets of London and beyond. The Colour Bar radio project Due in part to concerns expressed by management over issues of racial prejudice, plans began in June of 1943 for the creation of a talk program addressing racial prejudice in Britain tentatively called The Colour Bar. The show would arrange for guests of “Negro descent” to openly address their perceptions of racism in England with well-known host Kenneth Little. The three included Aduke Alakija, a West African woman studying Social Science at Cambridge; Dr. Harold Moody, a West Indian lobbyist and member of the League of Coloured Peoples and Robert Adams, a teacher, 5 actor and musician from British Guiana. Of particular importance to the program‟s narrative were discussions by Adams and Moody about the mistreatment many West Indian immigrants received when arriving to England. All three agreed and cited difficulties encountered in getting a place to live if you happen to be a black. Also discussed were examples of how a landlady will often explain that no rooms were available “even when it's obvious that there are vacancies” or “you just received the address from [a housing] agency.” Adams emphasized that “colour prejudice is fairly general in this country” because “for some reason people seem to be on the impression is because you‟re colored something was wrong with you.” Adams reaffirmed that “any coloured person arriving here from a British colony is, of course, a British subject or at any rate a British protected subject.” 5 He explained that this occurred “in theory” because “in practice it often doesn't work out that way.” New citizens of color simply did not have “the same rights as any white citizen.” After the recording was completed, Director of Talks G.R. Barnes forwarded a memo addressing the planned program and recommended an evening broadcast time. He also suggested that the program not run at the peak listening time of 9:20 for fear of exacerbating an already heated issue. He noted that the program should be considered “a conversation between friends,” and the announcement proceeding the broadcast should state that the program was “not an attempt to get to the root of the matter; rather a 6 ventilation of widely held views.” There was some trepidation of the subject in that Barnes agreed that although many West Indians would welcome an open discussion of race, “other colored People such as Chinese and Indians might resent the implications of such a discussion.” 6 However, during a weekly Colonial Office publicity meeting that followed, Mrs. Elspeth Huxley, BBC Liaison Officer explained that the Colonial Office had received an increasing amount of complaints from “coloured people” in general, “about prejudice and discrimination” in urban England. The Colonial Office hoped that the program would bring “the whole subject [of race] out into the light of day,” yet G.R. Barnes, Director of Talks was concerned. He felt that a discussion of this nature “was apt to deal in generalities and abstract questions which were often beyond ordinary men and women” in England. Huxley stated that while West Indians and other immigrants may not “object to a frank and open discussion of difficulties”, they might criticize the “hypocrisy which they see and our attitude of official non-discrimination and unofficial Prejudice.” These immigrants felt that no matter what the “official policy was for the Crown,” the natural reactions of many English people were unfavorable. 7 Days later Barnes made a recommendation that the Home Service not broadcast the program. He explained that he “very much regretted the decision,” and insisted that the speakers receive payment for their efforts. He also suggested that the script be “kept on file in case usage could be 7 made of it at a later date.” 8 In 1949, J. Grenfell Williams, Head of the Colonial Service suggested that a series on the Colour Bar wouldn‟t get the Service “anywhere,” and that it would be far better to “take one great question like the problem of human relations in Africa, and thrash that out.” 9 Ultimately the Third Programme approved the Colour Bar talk, but it focused upon racism in parts of South Africa, not the experiences of West Indian immigrants in England. Caribbean Voices and West Indian Programming Within the British West Indies, the four most populated islands of Jamaica, Trinidad, Guiana and the Windward Islands reportedly had 93,000 radio receiver sets 10 and a sizable audience of nearly three million citizens. After considering this data supplied by the United States Information Agency (USIA), the BBC World Service began broadcasting its Caribbean Voices radio program on the 11th of March 1943. The Service targeted the Caribbean as part of the anti-communist “Hands across the Sea” project. 11 The twenty-minute show recorded at the BBC studios in London and broadcast to the Caribbean Isles each Sunday via the BBC‟s General Overseas Service featured stories, poems and other literary works by West Indian writers. Originally produced by journalist and poet Una Marson, the program first entitled Calling the West Indies (1939) later became a forum where audiences could hear the works of budding Caribbean authors. The 8 program later expanded to one hour, and relied upon local editors in Kingston, Guiana and the Bahamas to find writers showing promise. Irishman Henry Swanzy‟s takeover as producer of the program began just after the war. Often credited as the originator of Caribbean Voices (though Una Marson began working on the project a decade before), he had joined the BBC as News Talks Assistant for the Empire Department and Overseas Division in 1941, and later became an editor and producer. Britain had its share of Caribbean servicemen who stayed on for extended service, often to the chagrin of the Colonial Office. However, this relocation ensured an even larger audience of those eager to listen to a taste of home.
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